


still crazy after all these years

by Nope



Category: Spider-Man (Comicverse)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-15
Updated: 2008-11-15
Packaged: 2018-01-25 05:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1632884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nope/pseuds/Nope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One day, maybe one day soon, Norman Osborn is going to be President. (After Thunderbolts #125, but disregarding Brand New Day.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	still crazy after all these years

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Liliaeth

 

 

 _So do the_ **proud** men die: crucified,  
not on a cross of **gold** \-- but on a  
stake of humble **tin**.  
\-- Gerry Conway, Amazing #122

One day, maybe one day soon, Norman Osborn is going to be the president of the United States of America. Sure, he killed a bunch of people, some of them on live TV, and as political detriments go, that one's a woozy. But as he told Channel 9, he won't deny he's had difficult times, both personally and in business. But Tony has offered him redemption, and none of us should be arrogant or stubborn when American heroes offer us redemption. Plus that whole 'stabbing a Skrull through the chest with an American flag' thing? The public love this stuff.

 

"President Osborn," he says to the mirror, practicing his smile as he straightens his tie.

Peter makes a soft, scoffing noise.

Norman doesn't turn around but he doesn't have to. Peter's wearing an old brown suit, like he was dressed by an old woman, and he's standing at the very edge of Norman's vision. Norman's wearing charcoal - it polls well - and a blue silk tie. Both were hand stitched, he likes to think, by child labor in somewhere like Afghanistan, forced into sweat-shop slavery by the burning of the poppy fields. He can smell sweetly poison smoke and salty despair.

 

"No quips?" Norman asks.

Peter reminds him they've always had a different relationship. Norman thinks of mentioning how he fucked Peter's virginal girlfriend and then he killed her, just because, and chuckles instead, looking away.

There's an incy wincey spider dangling from the ceiling on a slim, almost invisible thread. While Norman watches, it slowly wiggles and wriggles and climbs half way, slips back down, starts up again.

"Do you know what the definition of madness is?" Norman asks.

Peter suggests Norman enlightens him.

"Doing the same thing over and over," Norman says, "and expecting a different result each time."

 

Peter chuckles. The spider drops, starts back up again.

"Stubborn little thing," Norman muses. "Such desperation to survive in an inimical world."

He thinks suddenly of Harry, though he could not say why; of the last time he visited his son's grave, alone in the rain.

"I offered you the world," he says, to Harry, to Peter. "All the world," he smiles, "and no-one to give it to."

Peter throws a lazy, sarcastic salute to the Emperor of Garbage.

"One man's garbage--" Norman laughs, bright wide smile as he smooths his hair back. "You know how that works, Mister Photographer."

 

Jonah might be out there now, in the crowd. Sure, he's an old dog too late for new tricks, but he's a wily old hound. Norman heard rumors the man had a heart attack when Peter pulled off his mask in front of all those cameras, and Norman is inclined to believe them; his own moment of revelation was just as rendering, his own betrayal just as sharp.

"You broke the rules." Norman's fingers leave gouges in the wood. He forces them open. He is calm. He is control here. "You broke the rules!"

He turns but Parker isn't there.

 

"Is everything okay, Mister Osborn?" asks - it takes him a moment - Connie. Red hair. Lighter and much shorter than Mrs. Parker's. "Stan will be ready for you in just a few minutes."

"Thank you."

Connie apologizes for the delay. Norman accepts graciously. Connie congratulates him on his victory. Norman demurs modestly. Strength isn't the only thing he's had enhanced. He does not look up, or smile too much, or laugh, or cackle. He is a media darling, he and his little gang. Masks firmly on, children.

"Thank you," he says again. She leaves. Norman tuts. "That sixth sense of yours."

 

There is an incy wincey spider. There is a much bigger one, wearing a brown suit like it's a man and not some misbegotten freak of super-nature, crawling down from the ceiling, crouching on the wall - and how, Norman still wonders, does that even work through clothes? Maybe he'll find out after the dissection.

Peter starts to speak - threaten, even.

"I could have the Thunderbolts in here with a word," Norman retorts. "The whole of SHIELD, the Initiative, maybe task a few Sentinel-suits from those morons at O*N*E."

Peter wonders aloud why Norman doesn't; he sounds genuinely interested.

 

With a little room to operate, no one can lay a glove on Peter. Norman knows this from personal experience. All that lithe grace, sinewy muscle. It's all fun and games until Peter chucks a car at you. But there are ways. So many ways. The bombs help, of course. The hostages: lovely; screaming; innocent. Publicity - different nuance now Peter's come unclean like that, but still. There are ways. Reduce the space. Shove Peter into a broom closet, close his hand around Peter's - around him, and then. Well. 

There are so many ways to break a person it's almost obscene.

 

Peter's still looking at him. Waiting for an answer.

"You always were an insolent little whelp, Parker," Norman says. His smile is crooked, but he straightens it, they way he has his hair, his tie.

The little spider drops, climbs.

"You get one more day," Norman says. "Not today. Not tomorrow. But one day you'll stop looking over your shoulder. One day, you'll sigh in relief. One day, you'll forget."

The spider drops. Climbs. Norman reaches up to close his hand around it, to break the web with a quick flick of his wrist.

"And then I will remind you."

 

An open window, a whisper of the breeze, a lingering web. Connie at the door saying "two minutes". Karla lounging artfully. Melissa closed-off, Mac twitchy, the good glowing Chen green-Buddha smiling over them all.

"You always were a disappointment to me," Norman says, and chuckles, and opens his hand. The little spider, dazed and confused, freezes for a moment before scuttling away, off his fingers, off along the counter.

"Come along children," Norman commands, head held high, ready for the applause. His crowd, his people, his country waits. "There're good works to be done."

One day. Maybe one day soon.

 


End file.
